I have a post worming its way through my brain, ready to wiggle out at some point today...

...but I must attend to the fact that, for the first time in my blogging history, I am it.

So, six utterly useless things, habits, quirks I seem to never be able to completely overcome:

- I hate it when somebody uses the microwave, pulls something out before the cooking time is completely up, and fails to reset the thing. There's a button called "CLEAR" on the damn thing, people. Use it. The worst offender here: my mom. Love her dearly...but push the button, Mom!!!

- Microwaves, VCRs, digital clocks, digital car radios that display the time: all of those things must have the correct time on them, even when allowances are made for daylight savings. Spring forward and fall back, people. Dan doesn't care about this and actually gets annoyed at me for changing the clocks in his car to the correct time after the rest of the Western world has been advised to turn clocks back or forward. He thinks it's expending too much energy on changing numbers that will eventually go back to what they originally were anyhow. I think of the horrific dream I had when I was starting college: the one in which I checked every single clock in my parents' house and none of them were right. Time was of the essence, and I'd lost it.

- I still find myself turning things over and over again in my hands from time to time. It's a reflex that is dying very, very hard from my years as a glassblower, when hot glass on the end of a blowpipe had to be kept in constant motion and on-center so that gravity could be fully overcome. I imagine inanimate objects getting incredibly dizzy in my hands sometimes. To all those pens, pencils, cooking utensils, baseballs, coins, nail clippers, etc.: I apologize unreservedly for your altered states.

- Sometimes I find myself really really hating the fact that I can't curse. I had parents who cussed blue streaks to a point where I was seriously disgusted. I dropped my disgust when I went to college, and it slipped even more when I worked for a boss who cussed in such creative ways that I just had to join in. The cussing thing ended when I had my son. Now I find myself sounding like a shrill, annoyed Doris-Day-ish, stamping-of-feet (insert your best nasal voice here) "ma-MAAH" when I get ticked at the little guy and say things like "For goodness' sakes!" or "What did I just say?" or "How many times do I have to tell you these things?" - when what I really want to say can border on verbal abuse, even if I'm simply venting. Sometimes motherhood resembles sucking shit on a stick. Bottom line: I just hate that I sound like Miss Manners these days. It's damned unbecoming. But I am also very conscious that words can and do hurt. Oh, well.

- I read. A lot. A lot a lot a lot. I am trying to cut down on the terrible habit I have of buying books. I think I need to change my breaking point when it comes to book buying, because I have been basing it on the story of a geologist and rock collector I met when I was in middle school and working on a science project about geodes. Said geologist was quite the avid collector of all kinds of mineral, gem, and crystal specimens, until the foundations of his house sank from the weight of all his finds. His wife was especially peeved that money had to be expended on jacking the house up, and she laid down the law on his collecting, forcing him to donate or sell a number of his finds and confining the keepers to one room in the house.

I think Dan needs to start putting his foot down. The foundations of our house aren't in jeopardy, but I need a new, more critical and ever-present breaking point. If anybody's got any ideas, let me know.

- I'm just not a big fan of memes...but hey, I'm doing the polite thing and doing this one. Honestly, I don't mind doing them myself - it's just this idea that I have to pass 'em along as though they are hot potatoes. I guess I just worry a tad too much about what other people think concerning them.

So, if you're reading this, and it looks like a fun thing for you to do, go for it and send me a line as to what you've posted. Tag yourselves. Just remember...it's all fun and games, 'til someone loses a virtual eye. Try not to poke or get poked.